Contributing ideas to complete the draft Law on Cultural Heritage (amended), National Assembly delegate Tran Thi Van - National Assembly Delegation of Bac Ninh province paid attention to the policies to support artisans stipulated in Article 13 of the draft law. According to the delegate, artisans are considered as living human treasures, the thread that preserves folk cultural elements and the keepers of the fire for heritage.
However, the 2001 Law on Cultural Heritage has not yet regulated the preferential treatment policy for artisans and in 2009 the law amended and supplemented a number of articles, including Clause c, Article 26, which stipulates "monthly living allowance and preferential treatment for artisans who have been awarded the title by the State, have low income and are in difficult circumstances".
By 2015, the Government had issued Decree 109, which stipulates support for folk artisans and excellent artisans, but they must be low-income or in difficult circumstances. According to the law's implementation summary report, since its promulgation, only 20/1,881 artisans have been awarded this regime and none of the 747 folk artisans have received support, because they are not subject to Decree 109.
Telling the story of her locality, delegate Tran Thi Van said that Bac Ninh is a province with a large number of relics. In addition to 1,589 relics, 651 ranked relics, 14 artifacts are national treasures, Bac Ninh also has 49 intangible cultural heritages, of which 8 heritages are included in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritages, 4 heritages are recognized by UNESCO, such as Bac Ninh Quan Ho folk songs, Ca Tru, Mother Goddess worship, etc.
According to the delegate, one of the solutions to preserve and promote these precious heritages of Bac Ninh province is to pioneer in implementing preferential treatment policies for artisans. Bac Ninh currently has 203 honored artisans, including 10 people's artisans, 42 excellent artisans honored by the State and 151 artisans awarded by the province.
Since 2015, the Provincial People's Council has issued Resolution 2013 regulating policies to preserve and promote heritage values, accordingly, folk artisans are entitled to a monthly allowance equal to 2 times the basic salary, excellent artisans are entitled to 1.5 times and artisans awarded by the province are entitled to 1 time the basic salary per month, in addition, each artisan is also supported with health insurance and funeral expenses equal to 10 times the basic salary as for officials and civil servants.
"It can be said that after nearly 10 years of implementing this policy, Bac Ninh has been promoting the talents of artisans, encouraging them to pass on, contribute, spread, preserve and conserve heritage" - the delegate emphasized.
According to the female delegate, this draft law has absorbed and supplemented more appropriate and stronger policies to honor and provide preferential treatment for artisans. Therefore, the delegate fully agrees with the addition of regulations on preferential treatment policies for all folk artisans and excellent artisans as stipulated in Point d, Clause 1, Article 13 of the draft law without being limited by regulations for artisans with low income or difficult circumstances as in the current law.
In addition, delegate Tran Thi Van also proposed adding folk artisans to the beneficiaries of the policy along with people's artisans and excellent artisans, because if only regulated as above, only people's artisans and excellent artisans would be supported without mentioning the policy for folk artisans.
While folk artist is a noble title of the Vietnam Folk Arts Association, which is carefully reviewed by the Association and awarded to those with achievements in preserving and promoting the value of cultural heritage in many different fields, from 2003 to now, after more than 20 years, the Association has only reviewed and awarded the title to 747 artisans.
In addition, the delegate also suggested that the specific amount of support for artisans in Articles 17, 18, and 19 in the draft decree submitted with the draft law should be considered when stipulating instead of the support level for folk artisans being 2 million VND, for excellent artisans being 1.5 million VND/month and the funeral allowance being 10 million VND/person, the minimum support level for folk artisans should be 1.5 times the basic salary, for excellent artisans being 1 time and for folk artisans being 0.7 times and the funeral allowance being 5 times the basic salary to ensure long-term stability.
"This way, we can ensure appropriate and worthy support for artisans, encourage them to love their profession more, pass on their profession, and encourage the next generation of artisans, who are young people, to be more active in preserving and promoting the value of heritage," the delegate said.
Establishing a Cultural Heritage Conservation Fund is essential.
Also contributing to the draft Law, National Assembly delegate Tran Van Thuc - National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa province expressed his approval for the establishment of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Fund. According to the delegate, in the context of limited and difficult budget capital for investment in culture in general and cultural heritage in particular, the establishment of this fund is extremely necessary.
Recent practice in conducting supervision in localities on the topic of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the implementation of policies and laws on innovation of the organizational and management system, improving the quality and efficiency of operations of public service units in the period of 2018-2023 also shows that the mechanisms and policies to ensure for units in the cultural sector are extremely difficult.
"The draft law stipulating the establishment of a Cultural Heritage Conservation Fund is one of the effective solutions we believe to mobilize investment resources for cultural heritage, meeting practical needs," said the delegate.
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